


The Edgelord and the Creature (2p! Aushun)

by artistocrazy



Series: AusHun Week 2018 [3]
Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: 2P Austria (Hetalia), 2P Hetalia, 2p Hungary (Hetalia), Alternate Universe - Art School, Alternate Universe - College/University, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-15
Updated: 2018-08-15
Packaged: 2019-06-28 02:54:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,368
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15698667
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/artistocrazy/pseuds/artistocrazy
Summary: A new semester has started, but despite having classes together already, Roland and Ezster are seeing each other plain for the first time.





	The Edgelord and the Creature (2p! Aushun)

**Author's Note:**

> A Drabble for Aushun Week 2018 For Day 2: First.
> 
> Warning: this is some straight-up rawr XD bullshit. Have a little cringe on me.

Seeing her this time around was just too much for Roland to take. Okay, so maybe Eszter was disgustingly sweet like so many other girls. Disgustingly sweet, preppy girls were ones he’d played around with before. They were curious, and he was willing to indulge them fawning over him for a few hours... until it got annoying. The casual walk on the other side with Disney princesses and theater girls was healthy every once in a while. Well, at least, it was a nice ego boost to have the arm candy fawning over him.  

He remembered Eszter from class last semester - basically she was one of those kinds of girls still, but something was very different. For starters, her hair was now this chalky pastel pink. Was it supposed to be like a strawberry blonde or something? Did something go wrong with the dye? Oh, poor princess! Now that he was really looking, it was no mistake - he’d caught hints of a blue and lavender to match it. It was definitely bleached that way for colors.  

She was coming closer. Uh oh. More adventure from the great wide somewhere - her smoky shadow and black liner. That was on purpose. And that lipstick - the way it was blended, there was no way she made a mistake in it being that dark. And that baggy sweater... that metallic bow... that frilly skirt... those stockings...  those combat boots. It should have been too edgy for a girl like her, but he’d never seen her look more comfortable and move around so confidently wearing anything else. What the hell? Why did he care all of the sudden? Why was this getting to him?

You know what? No! He wasn’t going to let her get away with grabbing his attention that easily. Oh no, he was going to snatch hers right back. He just had to dust off the charm. That’ll get the right person oogling at the other. She’ll see! 

Sneaking around the corner of the building, he climbed onto the landing of the stairwell and peered down at her almost like a gargoyle. There was no way she could ignore him coming up those stairs. 

And he was right in that assumption. He spooked her bad enough to get her to jump and drop her bags and do that little startled squeak. Wait - had he stored the sound as her squeak - _that_ squeak - not just some generic girly squeak? 

He did his best to laugh it off and focus back in. “So it _is_ you. I thought I recognized you, Princess.”

Eszter sighed and slumped her shoulders, registering the gargoyle. Why did this guy always seem to squat in danger’s path?

“Szia, Roland,” she answered wearily, looking around for her bags. “Did you have a good summer?” 

She sounded tired. Winded. Bored. Bored? With him? That simply wouldn’t do. He had to ramp it up.

“Oh, you know it,” Roland grinned and regaled her, sprawling himself out over the steps. “Touring, practicing, writing, recording, and some movement between, if you couldn’t already tell - I feel refreshed.” 

Eszter nodded her head before bending down to reach for her bags, “A little too refreshed maybe... You’re in my way?”

While maintaining eye contact, Roland gathered himself up to stand and slowly pulled himself up to his new perch on the stairwell wall. He noticed her scanning him over on that “movement” line. Typical - she was into him for his body. Not shocking - that’s kind of how most of these sorts of girls were with him. And she apparently wasn’t all that different - just less handsy about it. He could see her switch back and forth between staring at him and at the floor. It was all too easy.  

Roland dangled his leg from his new perch like a cat tail and smiled, all too proud of himself. This didn’t last long, as he soon saw Ezster lugging those bags up the stairs and past him. She could have knocked him over the edge, if she were tall enough to reach him. The nerve of some people.

Another idea came to him. Calling after her, he reached slowly for the back of his collar and was getting ready to tug, showing off his new Icarus wings. “I got a new tat, if you’re curious. You’d be the first person here lucky enough to see it.”

She called over her shoulder. “I think I’ll pass.” 

Eszter’s hair still curled the same way as before, and it looked like clouds in an early sunset, swirling behind her. This girl was a piece of work. A masterwork, maybe. No, no, she was just another girl. So she had rainbow sherbet for hair now - so what? So what did she use to get it to bounce like that? 

“Wait!” Roland called after her with more urgency, nearly getting up from his perch. Eszter turned back to him, looking a little annoyed, but noticing his eyes on her as her locks swished and cascaded around her face. He grasped for words. It almost looked like he was thinking about them for once, leaving Eszter intrigued, to say the least. 

Somehow, maybe through a pact with fae folk or something, he managed to make grasping for words look and sound anything but desperate. But just barely. “Ah.. did something happen? You’re looking... _not_ preppy, I guess?”

Ezster put the bags down again, her impatience becoming clearer with her hands on her hips. “You can just say it - ‘Ezster, you dyed your hair.’ It’s not a big deal.” 

Roland cocked his head and squinted, taking more note of every color he could gleen from those curls - the catches of light, the shadows, how they tumbled over her shoulders and peeked out above the rise of her hips. A waterfall of color.

“By yourself?”

She shrugged and shifted her eyes with a furrowed brow. Her pride didn’t completely overtake her defenses, and she was getting curt. “Umm, yeah?”

“All of it?” It left him before he could stop himself. He felt maybe a twinge of regret on his next breath, but he didn’t plan on taking it back. Heck, her answer might have been something interesting - an interlude into something else not so polite.

Apparently, she wasn’t taking it, as proven by her scoff and small scowl. “Wouldn’t you like to know?” And she hoisted those bags up again, prepared to walk briskly toward that door.

Okay, apparently he wasn’t that proud to let that be the end of it. Smacking his forehead discretely, he called back to her. “I didn’t mean it like _that_!”

Realizing she’d need one of her hands to open said door, the princess dropped her bags again and tried to get feeling in her fingers again. Looking up to the sky, Ezster turned back on her heel to face him, attitude apparent. She strolled back toward him, crossing her arms and glaring through the strands of hair covering her face. “How did you mean it, then?”

Roland sighed and ran a hand through his sidebangs, gesturing soon after to that swirling sherbet-y mane. “I meant it like you have a lot of hair. It must have taken you a long time. That’s all. It looks cool.”

Ezster’s eyes widened, the whites of them bringing out her shadow and making them look like the cosmos. She could barely believe she had milked an actual compliment out of Egomaniacal Edelstein. Granted, it was small and not very over-the-top, like how he boasted about himself, but she knew something about it was rare. Vulnerable, really. And it made her feel that way, too. Although she wanted to stand her ground, the princess shifted on her feet, still trying to process it. “Yeah, it’s been a while since the last time. I’m pretty happy with it.”

Roland’s eyes widened slightly in shock. His smooth disc jockey voice was slipping. “You’ve done this before? Like, you’ve bleached and used these kinds of colors before?” 

Okay, now he was starting to freak her out. There wasn’t even a hint of irony or condescension in how he asked that question. It felt too genuine - like he was actually impressed. The gargoyle looked like he’d soon reach out for it and admire her curls up close. But he didn’t - he just sat there, looking almost pained to hold himself down. Was this... was this him being respectful? He could do that?

Blush dusted her cheeks, and she tucked those few stray curls behind her ear. Roland thought he spotted a smile. She sassed him. “I wouldn’t say there was a last time if I hadn’t done it before, right?” 

He shrugged, letting his teeth slip out into a sheepish smile. “Yeah, I guess that’s- _hang on_.” He held out a hand to stop her, and she paused with wide eyes. Thank God she didn’t squeak. He squinted over those red-tinted glasses and briefly chuckled, gesturing over at her hand tangled up in the rainbow. “You actually own black nail polish?” Following that, he pulled them down the bridge of his nose and leaned in. “Are those _pink_ contacts?”

Ezster wasn’t taking his tone well. It would have been like him to mock her in the same breath, huh? The princess rolled her eyes and shot back at him, admittedly stung by that patronizing tone. “Yeah, sure, laugh at me for liking pink. Wow. It makes you look so tough - you with your blood red ones.”

Leaning forward with an elbow to his knee, Roland lowered his glasses further to gaze into her eyes, wiggling those unkempt eyebrows. “You’re so sure I don’t actually have red eyes?”

She was still too stung to let him sweet talk her with that voice as smooth as honey. With a petty smirk and teasing giggle, Ezster leaned forward close enough to nearly rest her hands on the gargoyle’s thighs. She sassed him in a chilling whisper through her blunt, deadpan expression: “Yeah. I have this hunch you’re maybe not a demon, no matter how hard you try to act like it.” 

As she twirled away and moved towards her bags again, the princess left Roland with a whiff of perhaps the sugariest smelling perfume to grace him and inspire millions of questions. Dammit! 

“So let me get this straight,” he pressed on. “This isn’t... this stuff isn’t new to you?”

Ezster’s confidence was peeking through as she proudly swished her skirt and smiled an almost mocking smile. “I’ve done this all before... Well, that’s not completely true. The only thing that _is_ new is the nose ring.”

He squinted, looking over her face again. God, she looked like a fairy queen, an airbrushed space doll, a pastel princess. He risked getting lost studying her, and she felt herself flush with those intense eyes focused solely on her. Was he drinking in the changes or looking for the first time? She could barely tell, but her nerves convinced her to close her eyes and tilt her head down. 

In that moment, the ring reflected some light and Roland had the hunch to back off. He sat up straight again and let that surprise take him. “Oh, shit. Yeah, I guess that _is_ new. Nice stud.”

He had looked before. Ezster knew he would claim himself an expert on a lot of things, but he wouldn’t be dumb enough to back himself in a corner over it. He’d stared at her before, studied her before. And he had embarrassed her yet again. The princess let out a shy “thanks” before slowly returning to the door. 

Shit, he didn’t plan for this. Flirting was supposed to be fun. He was supposed to be good at this - good enough for her to come back and butter him up later. She wasn’t supposed to walk away all self conscious. At least, he assumed this was her being self conscious. Because a guy like him wouldn’t know anything at all about being insecure. Never. Never ever. Not a single day in his life. Oh, what the hell?

Swinging himself down from the perch, Roland jogged over to her as she was bent down grabbing those handles again. 

“Whoa, whoa! Hold on, Princess! You’re looking a little winded. You want a hand with those bags?”

She straightened up and tried to wave him down. “Oh, I don’t need-“

Before she could protest, the demon bent to her side and picked up both bags with one hand. “I didn’t ask if you needed it. I asked if you wanted it. So what’s it gonna be?” 

With a snarky smile, Ezster unweaved his ‘claws’ from the handles and pulled her bags back. Could she have used the help? Sure, but if she was going to be working crew this semester, she needed all the practice she could get. It wouldn’t have been a bad idea to have him around in case she needed a break. “If you’re so keen on lifting things and not being a demon, you can get the doors for me.”

“All of them?” He sassed.

Ezster scoffed at him again, but this time her smirk wasn’t going away. “Don’t be an ass. You almost sounded charming for a minute.”

He was charming for just the minute, huh? Sure. Okay. Fine. Bust him, see if he cared. Roland’s brow furrowed down at her while he slipped past her inside. “Looks like _someone_ grew an attitude this summer.”

“I told you,” she simpered back and proudly raised her chin, “the only thing that’s new is the stud.” 

The demon was back to condescending her in the same breath as he opened up the stairwell door. “Psh! Yeah, sure. Just the one.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” She asked confidently while she strained. Looking up at the stairwell, she blew the hair out of her face, ready to ascend. 

Roland stepped in front of her. “How many floors are you up?” Before she could answer, he shook his head and took her bags again, propping them up on his shoulder. “Don’t answer that yet. Catch your breath.” 

Sighing away her frustration, she barely cared he kept walking. He could walk up the rest of the stairwell for all she cared. She changed her mind though once he turned the corner. She didn’t have that much time to mess around. “Second floor, Creature!”

“Took you long enough!” The creature called back. “Need me to carry you, too, your majesty?”

“I think I decreed something about not being an ass?” The princess reprimanded him, jogging up after him with her hands in her pockets. Seeing those curls and that skirt flouncing again was just a treat. She was such a sugar-coated snack, it was ridiculous. 

Once Ezster reached him, she panted a little before opening the door. Pulling her key from her skirt pocket, she asked again. “What _was_ that supposed to mean, anyway? Just the one stud?”

Cocking his head to the side again, he let some mischief seep into his voice. “It means I think you’re lying about the stud thing. You are _way_ too pleased about it. There’s more than one somewhere, and it’s either on you now or he will be later.”

She went back to remembering her audience and rolled her eyes in disgust (although he wasn’t wrong about there being other piercings). Jiggling the keys in the lock and giving the door a solid shove, Ezster glared up at the creature with those pink eyes. She could play scary just as well as him, if not better. “Is it that hard for you to believe I’m into all of this stuff on my own?” 

Roland strolled into her room and lounged onto that pink princess bed, shucking the bags down beside him. “Frankly, I can’t help but wonder if you’re doing it to impress somebody.”

A wicked smile graced her face and she hummed, too amused at how gullible he really was. “That’s not my bed.” 

Leaning back to take in the room, Roland was close to scratching his head over the raven-patterned purple sheets and the band posters and tapestries on the wall across the way. He was only brought out of questioning when he heard those bags shift away from him, back in Ezster’s grasp and moving across the room.

“Look, I’m doing this for me. I’m taking a break from ensemble stuff and working in makeup and costuming, so I don’t have to worry about trying to look generic for parts. I’m reclaiming my body from the theater for a while. Okay?”

Thinking she was probably going to demand he get up anyway, Roland slid down from off that pink comforter. He’d certainly been there before, back when his parents forced classical music onto him and suffocated him in those monkey suits for recitals. 

“I get it,” he affirmed. Having closed some of the gap between them, he gently let a stray curl of hers slide between his fingers. It shouldn’t have been so soft on his callouses. It shouldn’t have been that soft at all. “But how do I know for sure this isn’t a costume?” he nearly whispered it, testing her.

Pulling her hair back gently and snickering at the dope, Ezster pat his cheek and kept him in check. Shaking her head, she discretely guided him to the door. “Oh, Roland, you poor creature. I hate to break it to you, but every other time you saw me _was_  me in the costume.”

Disgustingly sweet. She’d knocked him out of her door in a way so distinctly and sickeningly sweet. It should have made him mad, served as an offense to him. But it didn’t. Something was bubbling under him, but it surprisingly was far from anything malicious. 

He stood there for a second before turning around and knocking on her door. Having the greatest hunch she wouldn’t answer, the demon leaned on the frame and got to talking.

“Hey, ah... before I go, I just... you should know I wasn’t trying to make fun of you. I really do get it, and I think it’s pretty hardcore, what you’re doing... Let me know if anybody gives you a hard time over it.”

Roland started to walk away before he heard the door creak open behind him. Ezster peered over at him with some suspicion. “Are you actually trying to be supportive, or are you just saying that so you can use me as an excuse to fight theater majors?”

The demon placed a hand to his chin and stroked his beard thoughtfully. “See, I was going with the first one, but I’m not gonna lie - I like your suggestion. Theater majors need a good ass-kicking sometimes and so do I. It’s a win-win for everybody.”  

The princess found herself snickering over this ridiculous asshat of a man yet again. Maybe he could be charming for two minutes. A broken clock is right twice a day, isn’t it? 

“No, but seriously,” he called her attention again, “If people are giving you shit over doing this, you can talk to me if you want. Because if it makes you happy, then fuck what they think.”

Ezster pulled her phone out of her pocket and scrolled through her contacts. “I don’t have your number, do I?”

“You can, if you want it.” He shrugged, walking back over to her. The cheeky devil cracked a smile looking at her phone case - a unicorn farting a rainbow. Disgustingly cute. “Just don’t send me any dick picks. I get too many of those already.” 

Once he handed it back, Ezster scrolled to find his name. After a second look, she took a wild guess that she was looking for  _The Creature ;)_. Before she could call him out on the cringe of it all, he was gone. 

A little ways outside of the building, Roland felt his phone vibrate. Checking for messages, he couldn’t help but cackle over a picture of Richard Rodgers, and a note:

_My friends call me Edge._

Oooh, the cringe was strong with this one, too, and his fingers were quick. First, a response:

_Yikes XD_

_Short for Straight Edge?_

Second, a new name in his contacts: 

_Princess Edgelord_

 


End file.
